Aboard
by QueenOfTheDreamers87
Summary: "I was more than ready to take the helm of the wizarding world, Hermione, but I am not ready to put my little girl on a train and send her off to school, no." Hermione's eyes went wet and shone. She nodded and said in a thick voice, "Good." One-shot to accompany All The Wrong Choices. Tomione/Volmione.


"Tom," Hermione said, coming into the bathroom where Lord Voldemort was carefully shaving, "are you ready for this?"

"Not even a little bit." He dragged his razor over his cheek and rinsed it under the flow of warm water. He repeated the motion a few more times, pulling with the grain of the hair that had just begun to acquire little flecks of grey here and there.

He was getting old, he thought. His child was going off to Hogwarts, and he had the beginnings of fine lines around his eyes and lips. He was not the schoolboy Hermione had married. He patted his face with a warm, wet washcloth and turned towards Hermione. "No, I'm not ready. I was ready when we eliminated Grindelwald. When we took out Dumbledore and our other enemies. I was more than ready to take the helm of the wizarding world, Hermione, but I am not ready to put my little girl on a train and send her off to school, no."

Hermione's eyes went wet and shone. She nodded and said in a thick voice, "Good."

* * *

"All packed?" Voldemort ambled into Georgiana's elegant emerald sitting room to find his daughter already dressed in stylish pink robes, staring out the grand double window at the grounds of the Regia. She turned her face a little and quirked up the corners of her mouth at her father. Her little smile did not reach her glistening dark eyes.

"We need to go," she said. "Train leaves precisely at eleven."

"It won't leave until I give it permission to leave," Voldemort declared. Georgiana pursed her lips and knitted her hands in her lap.

"See, it's things like that..." she said, staring off again, and Voldemort stalked into her room and sat beside her on her plush velvet divan.

"Things like what, Georgie?"

"I just hope the others treat me like one of them," she mused, "and not as the daughter of the Dark Lord and Dark Lady. I want to be _Georgie_, member of whatever House I'm Sorted into. Not _The Lady Georgiana_, feared and revered and worshipped and tripped over."

"You'll figure out very quickly who your real friends are," Voldemort assured her, "and you'll make very good friends."

Georgiana stared at him and demanded tightly, "You know because you had very good friends when you were in school?"

He cleared his throat. "Your mother had excellent friends when she was in school."

"She did?" Georgiana raised her eyebrows. "I didn't know that."

"She had the very best friends, I think." Voldemort licked his bottom lip and sighed. "You'll have Bellatrix and Bilius."

"Oh, Bella's no use," Georgiana huffed. "She's as cruel as a Dementor. But Bilius and I shan't be parted, not even if we're Sorted differently. We've promised one another."

"You keep to that promise," Voldemort nodded. "Be good to him, and he'll be a loyal friend to you. Now. It wouldn't be good optics to hold up the train, I suppose. We're only taking a small group."

"A group," Georgiana groaned, and Voldemort gnawed his lip. It was going to bleed, he thought, if he kept fussing with it.

"Just to secure King's Cross. They're going ahead. Your mother and I are taking you by Side-Along to a designated spot. Just the same, Georgie, once we get there, stay close."

"All right," Georgiana grumbled. Voldemort rose and Levitated her trunks, and Georgiana carried her owl in its cage. She followed behind Voldemort, out of her quarters and through the corridor to the main staircase. They paraded down to the foyer of the Regia, where Hermione was already waiting in a long, elegant cloak.

"Ready, Georgie?" Hermione swiped at her eyes and looked like she'd been unsuccessfully staving off tears for a good long while. She held out her arms, and Georgiana reluctantly let herself get wrapped up in her mother's embrace. She touched her forehead to Hermione's shoulder and mumbled,

"It's only a few months, Mum, until Christmas."

"Yes. Only a few months until Christmas," Hermione repeated gruffly, "and then a few more months until the summer holidays. And then, for the next seven years, we shall have you at home for a couple of weeks at a time, and you'll be off on your own at school. And then you'll graduate and get a job and have a home of your own, and -"

"Hermione," Voldemort interjected softly. Hermione looked up from Georgiana's raven hair, her arms still wrapped around their daughter. Voldemort knew why Hermione was so emotional here at the Regia. The Dark Lord and Dark Lady wouldn't be able to be quite this maudlin at King's Cross. They were ordinary parents in some ways, but they couldn't fawn all over Georgiana on a train platform. They just couldn't. They couldn't be that human.

"It'll be a little different, now that you're beginning school, Georgie," Voldemort said in a quiet voice. Georgiana turned away from Hermione and said seriously,

"I'm going to make you both proud at school. I'm going to study hard. I won't get into too much trouble. Swear it."

Hermione scoffed a little and scolded her daughter, "But you must at least have a bit of fun."

"Let's go to King's Cross so that we aren't late," Voldemort suggested. "Hermione, you take Georgiana so I arrive alone. Ready? Here we go."

They Disapparated, coming to in a secluded, arched area of platforms inside the train station. None of the busy passing Muggles seemed to notice them, for the station was very busy and Voldemort had arranged for his Death Eaters to secure a perimeter in which he could safely Apparate. Yaxley appeared out of nowhere with a trolley, which Voldemort gratefully accepted. He manually lifted Georgiana's trunks onto it, and Georgiana set her owl down on top of a trunk. She put her little hands on the bars of the trolley and pushed it towards Platform 10, and Voldemort said quietly,

"See that column there? Go straight at it, Georgie."

She steadied herself. She'd been ready for this for years, Voldemort knew. She'd been ready to go off to school for ages. She'd been itching for independence, completely ready for Hogwarts. She made a mad dash towards the column between Platforms 9 and 10, and Hermione followed after her in a trot. Voldemort sighed as they vanished into the bricks, and he huffed a breath. He stalked casually toward the brick pillar, and then he was sucked into the abyss, coming to on Platform 9 ¾ and taking quite a nostalgic look about.

He hadn't seen the platform for the Hogwarts Express in many years, and his eyes actually watered a bit as he stepped with Hermione and Georgiana away from the column. He blinked, tipping his chin up as the throng seemed to realise that the Dark Lord's family had just appeared. Everyone dipped into respectful obeisances; witches curtsied and wizards bowed low. The great hustle and bustle ceased for a moment as faces morphed into expressions of awe and voices went quiet.

"My Lord. My Lady," murmured a strawberry blond wizard they passed. Voldemort nodded to the wizard's son, who was already in school robes, and said tightly,

"Have a good term, Mr Abbott."

"Thank you, My Lord," the boy squeaked.

"Is that her? Is that the Lady Georgiana?" hissed a voice. Voldemort's face snapped to the questioning whisper, and he saw a girl with bobbed dark hair and an obnoxious pink ribbon staring right at Georgiana. Beside her was a scrawny-looking wizard, who was nodding eagerly. He bent down and whispered something into the girl's ear, and Voldemort's face went hot. He knew what Georgiana wanted. She wanted to be normal, to be one of them. He wanted it for her, too. He wanted her to sit on the stool and be Sorted, to sit among friends in the Great Hall, to study in the library and cheer on her House at Quidditch.

"Georgie," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders and staring down at her. He ignored the dozens of eyes upon him and met his daughter's eyes for a long moment. "It's going to be wonderful."

"You've given me so much," she whispered. "I can do the rest from here."

"I know you can," he nodded. "You are a very intelligent witch, so very clever. They'll probably put you into Ravenclaw."

"But she's also so very kind, and so loyal. Could be a Hufflepuff," mused Hermione. She put her hand between Georgiana's shoulder blades and considered, "So brave she terrifies me. She's got Gryffindor blood."

"And she's got dreams that soar into the skies, like a true Slytherin. Who knows? She well may stall the Hat." Voldemort smirked. Suddenly his eyes were searing like mad, and he whispered, "You're going to be wonderful."

"My Lord?"

Voldemort turned around as a wizard hesitantly called out for him. He quirked up his lips at a family before him, a stout man with a brushy mustache and his tall, lean wife, who was clutching the shoulders of a teenaged girl. A younger boy, too young for school, stood by the father.

"Morning," Voldemort said. "All ready for the school term, are we?"

"It's an honour to meet you, sir," said the wizard. "I'm Icharus Rodwell; this is my wife Acacia and our children, Leandros and Libra. Libra is a Ravenclaw at Hogwarts, a Prefect. She'll be more than happy to show the Lady Georgiana the ropes, as it were."

"Oh. Thank you. That's very kind." Hermione's voice was warm from beside Voldemort. "Georgie. Come meet Libra Rodwell, dear."

Georgiana, it seemed had taken a seat upon her trunks and was studying the train's mechanisms closely. She hadn't been paying any attention whatsoever to the conversation. She finally turned over her shoulder, still sitting on the trunk, and gave a little wave.

"Hullo," she said to the teenaged Ravenclaw, whose cheeks had gone pink. "Nice to meet you."

"Hope you're Sorted into Ravenclaw," said Libra. "We're the best House, really."

Georgiana smirked and nodded. "Right. Well, thanks very much."

"Of course, My Lady." Libra bowed her head, and Georgiana's brows knitted.

"_Georgiana,_ if you please."

The Hogwarts Express let out a long steam whistle, cueing the students to begin boarding the train. The Rodwell family nodded and took their exit, and as they left, Voldemort came to stand before where Georgiana sat on her trunk, and he said quietly to her,

"It's going to be wonderful."

Georgiana just whispered, "My things."

"I'll help you." She scrambled down, and Voldemort Levitated her trunks and guided them to the luggage compartment of a car. Then he stood near the doorway leading up to a train car, and he watched as Hermione threw her arms around Georgiana again.

"You've no idea how much you mean to me," Hermione told her daughter, "but it doesn't change today. I'll miss you like mad."

"I'll make you proud, Mum," Georgiana said, just like she'd promised in the Regia. Hermione pulled back and insisted,

"You always make me proud, Georgiana Jean. Now go. Get a good seat. Make some friends… tell Bilius we said hello."

"I will." Georgiana quirked up half her mouth and looked about. "He's running late. As per usual. He'll be the last one on the train."

"I'm sure Mr Weasley will find his way to Hogwarts," Voldemort said, flicking his eyes to Hermione. He brushed a strand of Georgiana's hair away from her face and studied his daughter's features for a very long moment. The next time he'd see her, she'd be different. She'd have spent months taking care of herself, attending classes, making friends. She'd have grown up a lot the next time Lord Voldemort laid eyes upon her. This was the last time he was seeing his _little girl_, he thought. His throat constricted, quite uncomfortably, and he whispered,

"Goodbye, Georgiana."

"Goodbye." She bowed her head respectfully, just like everyone else did, and she bent to pick up her owl. She turned and climbed aboard the train, and Hermione reached for Voldemort's hand. The two of them took a step back onto the platform, and for a long moment, Voldemort couldn't breathe.

"She's going to be fine," he heard Hermione say, but all he could do was nod and mutter,

"I know she will."

"People are watching you, Tom," Hermione told him. "Looking to you for strength as they send their own children off."

Voldemort squared his jaw and nodded again. He watched as Georgiana appeared in the window of a compartment, holding up a hand and smiling weakly. Voldemort waved a little to her, and then the train whistled again. Students scrambled with the last call. It was eleven o'clock; the Hogwarts Express was leaving. In just a moment's time, the great steam engine had roared to life and had begun to churn, yanking and lurching until the train was pulling out of King's Cross Station.

Georgiana was almost gone then. She was pulling away from them, waving through the glass, smiling peacefully, until the train turned a bend and she was out of view. Hermione squeezed hard at Voldemort's hand, and the platform suddenly went rather quiet as the earnest parents who had bid their students farewell processed that their children were gone for the school term. People milled about for a long while, talking quietly to one another, but no one dared approach the Dark Lord and Dark Lady. They stood alone in silence, staring at the place where Georgiana had boarded the train, and finally Voldemort said,

"Well. That's that."

"That's that," Hermione agreed, and when he looked down at her, a single tear was running down her cheek.

"Let's go home, My Lady," he suggested. "I think we could do with a good warm lunch."


End file.
